Pastel Birthday Card...

....not exactly the most detailed brief in the world, yet off I went to the craft area, to gather materials and put my thinking cap on! This card was intended for a colleague of Tom's mum, who was born on the same day as Tom's parents got married, 30 years ago (I'm sure I will blog their anniversary card too at some point). I decided to make several cards that fulfilled the brief and to then let Helene choose the one she liked the most (and to try to sell the others).

30 Candles for the big 3-0!

This idea played out in my head for a long time before I was happy enough with it to put it to paper! The first issue being that to fit 30 paper candles on a card that card would need to be fairly long, not wanting it to become too heavily loaded I needed to balance the need for space with the sturdiness of the card, I folded a piece of A4 card in half and then carefully trimmed a bit off the end a little at a time until I had the correct size of card.The next problem was the envelope, it was clear from the very start that I did not have any envelopes in my stash that the card would fit inside, and my envelope board did not have measurements for a card of that size, so I called the Crafting Oracle, my lovely mum immediately set to working out the exact measurements I would need to create my own envelope, as you can see in the picture it is perfect, thanks Mum (her blog).

The candles are made from off cuts of paper found in my scraps bags (plural because even after a huge sort through and rationalisation of them this week, I still find myself with far too many to fit in just one or even two bags) and I would thus like to enter this card into Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Snippets Playground Week #144. First I calculated how tall the candles needed to be and the optimum width of paper for a 3-4mm wide candle, cut and measure all my strips (and a couple of spare just in case!), I then stuck dst in the middle of the strip (length ways) and also on the right hand edge. Next I used a barbeque skewer to roll the paper around being careful that it stuck together smoothly. I stuck the candles to the card I had made, the final step was to create the flames, for this I used my quickie glue pen to draw the shape of the flame and then put glitter on top (I had a slight accident with the glitter - in my attempts to blow some glitter from the card, I didn't think about how that gust of air would also send the pile of glitter on my paper flying in 100 different directions - oops - oh well I have now glittered my leggings, t -shirt and face, not to mention my computer keyboard!). 

A pastel floral wreath

Another card with the gorgeous floral wreath stamp borrowed from my lovely friend Zana. This card was fairly simple, the wreath was stamped and then coloured in using my WH Smith watercolour pencils in pastel pink and purple. Some of the flowers have been raised up using 3D foam and then gems were attached to each individual flower (purple on the pink flowers and pink on the purple flowers). It took me some time to decide on what to put in the middle of the wreath, once I had decided to put 30, there was more deliberation as to whether to use stickers or stamps, in the end I decided the number stamps I had were not appropriate for this card and used some gorgeous black glittery numbers, though I was slightly concerned that they were too small, what do you think?

Floral ink blended card

This card is like cards I have blogged previously, so I won't go into much detail on the process again. Ink blending in pastel colours with black flowers (2 raised on 3D foam) centered with co-ordinating gems (to the ink). A simple Happy Birthday sentiment (by Woodware, I've only recently discovered their stamps but have discovered how beautifully they stamp, even on linen card stock) was stamped in black ink before mounting the finished design onto black card stock (I failed to get it straight on the first five attempts, my mind wasn't up for concentrating particularly hard) and then attaching it to the card itself.

Flip Card

I absolutely love this Sizzix Flip-it die that I have borrowed from my mum (and I love all the others too, even without having them to play with!) and decided to use it with some free patterned papers (I can't remember which magazine they were from), to create an option for a 30th birthday card. This die set is brilliant, it has most of the shapes you need to complete this card, my only slight disappoint is the lack of straight edged squares (in fact I actually just measured and cut my own on my trimmer in the end as I didn't want wavy edges and the small straight squares were too small), but this doesn't put me off. I think I will make simple Christmas cards to sell using this die, once I am done with all the crafting that I have on my list to do by the end of this week!

I cut out the card and all the shapes I needed before sitting down to put it together, this was simple to do. After attaching the papers (on the back too, something I wouldn't normally do when selling a card in order to cut down on costs) and stamping Happy Birthday, I punched some butterflies out of the same papers and attached them down the middle to the card (to allow for some dimension and movement), I finished the butterflies by glueing a line of clear gems down their centres. 

Those that have read my previous blog posts will know that I like to decorate my envelopes too (especially when using cheaper envelopes), to make them a little more special. For this envelope I stuck a row of 5 butterflies in alternating papers, and then attached a second to the second butterfly in for some dimension, my finishing touch was again a row of clear gems stuck down the middle of the butterfly.

Tom's mum is having a tough time choosing between the Candle Card and the Flip Card, to be honest I'm not sure which I would choose either (though the Candle Card took literally HOURS)! *UPDATE* She chose the butterfly flip card, though thought maybe the 3 and the 0 should have been on the same side, what do you all think? I know I intentionally did it the way it is but cannot for the life of me remember the reason, my memory is failing me, I guess I am nearly another year older! Thanks for reading, I must get on I still have a 30th anniversary card, a baby card and a canvas to complete before we fly off to Sweden on Friday morning (and the anniversary card is for tomorrow!), not to mention another two cards to enter in the Oakhouse Studio 'Autumn Colours' challenge (HERE),

- Rebecca